PREMIERE IN THE 1990s

Premiere has never been very successful compared to other European pay-tv companies. Two million subscribed members is fractional compared to the English or Italian Sky and the Spanish or French Canal +. Like their European colleagues, the Germans always tried become more popular by offering sport, especially football. But the German television has not been, isn’t(and who knows never maybe) a big player in the monolopy therefore.

There are several reasons for this situation: the number of free available channels on German TV is too high which means that there is no interest in buying supplemental programs.

"SPORTSCHAU" AS BIGGEST COMPETITOR

The two public broadcasting organisations, ARD and ZDF, are obligated to produce TV programmes for mass audiences and to provide a service to the public: they have to offer information, education, culture and entertainment and they have to cover the interest of the general public. This includes sport and mainly football, of course. To achieve this function, ARD is hosting the “Sportschau” Saturday evening (at 6pm after the matches) and ZDF the “Sportstudio”, also talking about and presenting the match day. None of the matches is broadcasted live or completely, but the Germans seemed to accept that fact.

Since the foundation of Premiere in 1990, the company lived many ups and downs: their mother group went bankrupt and the pay-tv program survived shortly. The company has never been in the black, except 2005, when they went public.

In May 2009, Premiere announced that they’ll offer a new pay-tv program from July on. The company Premiere is now called Sky and the program’s name is Sky Deutschland (Sky Germany). The decisive factor for this change was the major stockholder and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. The Australian is the founder of Sky which comes off very well in the UK and Italy.

CONSEQUENCES

What are the consequences for us as football fans of both the domestic and international variety?

The “problems” (for pay-tv in Germany) named above aren’t eliminated. It seems difficult to envisage many changes in the TV landscape in the near future considering the watertight approach within the current economic climate. Will Sky be more successful than Premiere?

This year’s Bundesliga opening match will be broadcasted by ARD. They bought the transmission rights for loads of Euros (that’s for sure). I’m convinced that our two public broadcasting organisations and other free-TV channels are going to buy further interesting football matches, e.g. the qualifications for the World Cup, Champions League and Europa League. That means that we’re still not obliged to buy Sky and the supplementary Bundesliga package. But for how long will this remain, and therefore convince the public of the long-term structure?

Is Sky able to extend his British and Italian success to Germany? My Objective opinion, Not really, but Murdoch’s ambition is to create a pan-European brand. He’s on the best way to realise his objective and this might help to raise awareness.

SO EXPENSIVE...

For us football fans, Sky signifies primarily more costs: if you want to watch the six broadcasted matches exclusively, you have to pay €32,90 now, instead of €19,90 before. That’s not really what we want, is it?

Will Sky offer technical improvements, new camera angles, or what? I can’t afford pay-tv and as I’m currently living in France, I won’t buy it in the near future.

I guess that there won’t be many changes in the upcoming years. The public broadcasting organisations enabled it always, somehow, to buy the rights for football despite endless discussions and adventures. Thanks a lot, beloved “Sportschau”!